What book to read to understand the current economic situations better?

[Lapidus]

Which books do you guys recommend reading which would help us to understand the current economic situations better? What book you think breaks down best the what went wrong and goes wrong with the economy? (World or domestic economy, financial markets, trade relations, developing countries, whatever you think is most important for a better understanding of the current economic situation, also nowadays everything is so interrelated, so it matters all)

My favorites are

Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy (http://www.amazon.com/Fault-Lines-Fractures-Threaten-Economy/dp/0691152632/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319801793&sr=1-1) by Raghuram Rajan

Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why (http://www.amazon.com/Free-Trade-Doesnt-Work-Replace/dp/0578079674/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319801921&sr=1-5) by Ian Fletcher

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608191664/ref=pd_sim_b_4) byHa-Joon Chang

What do you read?

[LaurieAG]

What do you read?

Don't forget about Thucydidies 'History of the Pelloponesian war' where he describes in detail how the ancient Athenians lost the war against the Spartans. Some things never change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Peloponnesian_War

[mheslep]

Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom is on the reading list of several college economics classes.

http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Freedom-Phoenix-Milton-Friedman/dp/0226264017

Could you say why your list consists of anti-capitalist books, all published in the last couple years?

[Dotini]

Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom is on the reading list of several college economics classes.


Milton Friedman; possibly more responsible than any other single individual for the mess we are in now.

- Off the final gold standard
- Excessive deregulation of business
- Innovative but ultimately destructive financial instruments such as CDSs
- Extreme leverage and DEBT
- Rampant speculation

Weren't all these practices either invented or sanctioned by Friedman? Didn't legislators, politicians, government and institutional regulators, Wall Street CEOs and businessmen, other academics and ordinary people all take his imprimatur as a license for their maleficent actions?

If these OWS folks were looking for a bit of guerrilla theater, they might want to dig up his corpse and parade around with his head (or facsimile) on a pike.

I recommend Sun Tzu's "Art of War" and Niccolo Machiavelli's "The Prince". These books will tell you exactly how the world has worked for the last thousand years, and inform you well about what's going on today.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

[mheslep]

Milton Friedman; possibly more responsible than any other single individual for the mess we are in now.

- Off the final gold standard
- Excessive deregulation of business
- Innovative but ultimately destructive financial instruments such as CDSs
- Extreme leverage and DEBT
- Rampant speculation

Weren't all these practices either invented or sanctioned by Friedman? Didn't legislators, politicians, government and institutional regulators, Wall Street CEOs and businessmen, other academics and ordinary people all take his imprimatur as a license for their maleficent actions? Why not actually read some of his material and find out for yourself?

If these OWS folks were looking for a bit of guerrilla theater, they might want to dig up his corpse and parade around with his head (or facsimile) on a pike.
...

Respectfully submitted, ...No, I don't think it was

[PatrickPowers]

Which books do you guys recommend reading which would help us to understand the current economic situations better? What book you think breaks down best the what went wrong and goes wrong with the economy?

I like the classics: Ricardo, Keynes, Smith.

Nowadays I read Krugman's column. Michael Lewis' "Liar's Poker" and "The Big Short" for the inside view.

[skilgannonau]

For lay persons the classics are a waste of time unless you want to learn about history of economic thought.

To the OP, to understand what happened you need to learn economics. Pop-sci books won’t cut it.